cover your eyes (i have a surprise)
by queendementor
Summary: it's maisie's birthday, and amycus is going to make sure everything is perfect. that's not very likely, but he's still going to try.


**cover your eyes (i have a surprise)**

_a/n: this one's for maisie and nagini. happy birthday, you guys!_

It was a cold January night as Amycus made a very last-minute (read: seven minutes before midnight) trip to Wiz-Mart. He retrieved a shopping cart with his tongue on his way inside, the freezing temperatures threatening to turn the wriggling appendage into a popsicle.

While he, as a Death Eater, was regularly out and about at this hour, Amycus did not often go to Wiz-Mart at midnight. But this was a very special occasion. Even more so that most. What occasion could be more special than his wife's birthday?

Maisie said she didn't need anything special for her birthday. It was enough, she said, just to spend it with her favorite people – her husband and her daughter. Just _enough_, however, wasn't good enough for the Death Eater's precious Maisie. Everything was to be perfect.

All she had done was veto any plans for an extravagant birthday celebration. But she was at home, and Amycus had told Alecto to ask her for as many bedtime stories as she wanted. He had time.

(Maybe not enough time to lick all the merchandise, customers, and equipment until they were soggy, but definitely enough time to get what he needed and still lick the produce.)

First on the list was some wrapping paper. They had some at home, of course, but it was mainly shiny and left over from Alecto's birthday party a few months earlier. Maisie deserved better than leftovers. Though at the same time, she also deserved better than paper printed with loud, garish balloons and badly-drawn cartoon animals.

"What filthy muggle garbage," Amycus said to himself as his tongue released another roll of paper. It wasn't actually made by muggles, but it certainly looked like something they would have at their own filthy parties.

He searched through the bin of wrapping paper a little while longer. One roll of black paper with white flowers spoke to him, but it looked like someone had run it through the leaf machine and then sat on the remains.

A little tongue-searching helped him find a similar roll that someone had left on the top shelf. Some balloons of the same color joined it in the shopping cart, as did some place cards for the guests. Now all he had to do was leave the store.

Passing a man with a basket full of hair products and a woman with a houseplant in a stroller, he took his place at the back of the checkout line. He was still standing there thirteen minutes later.

If this were a muggle shopping center, the solution would have been easy. Amycus would have just slaughtered the people in front of him and gotten on with his day, pausing only to lick the bloody remains. But this was Wiz-Mart, and he had no way of knowing which of his fellow shoppers were pureblood. Therefore, murder wasn't really an option.

One thing, however, was always an option. And that thing was the caterpillar tongue.

No one seemed willing to argue with a four-foot-long tongue as he brandished it threateningly like a sword. Once everyone nearby had backed away, he came forward to stand at the front of the line.

Carrying the bag with his tongue, he left Wiz-Mart. Having a caterpillar tongue really did make shopping trips infinitely easier.

-x-

The trip home was interesting.

Something rustled in the bushes, and Amycus reached his tongue out to lick it only to realize it was a skunk. While he did not lick the skunk, his tongue still curled at the close call.

About a block or two down the road, he heard two voices coming from a yard. Little Mary Lou was telling all the leaves in the yard goodnight, and a tired-sounding Jeanne was begging her to come back inside. Amycus sighed, and he didn't even have to deal with her.

And when he finally did get home, his tongue curling around the doorknob as he twisted it open, inside sat a Maisie. There wasn't time to hide the decorations.

"Out licking again, darling?" she asked, rising to greet him.

"Of course," he told her, swiping his tongue up the side of her face.

Maisie's eyes found his bag. "Did you lick anything interesting?"

"I quite nearly licked a skunk," Amycus said. "It was most unpleasant. And while I was tempted, I did not lick a leaf-loving little girl."

"Did you lick what's in the bag?"

"No. I merely decided that if I was already outdoors, I may as well pick up some things for tomorrow's breakfast."

(That was only a half-lie. He'd had that revelation, it had just been a week ago.)

Fortunately, though, Maisie accepted it without any further investigation. Although he was subjected to some brief mushiness (which wasn't even that mushy, but it still had to happen after Alecto was asleep.) Not that either of them minded.

-x-

Every year for Maisie's birthday, Amycus brought his wife breakfast in bed. This he deposited on her bedside table with a kiss and a birthday lick. He also took it upon himself to get Alecto fed, dressed, and in this case, ready to accompany him to the bakery.

Even with magic, it took him ten minutes to clean Alecto's breakfast off her face, her hands, the wall, and most of the immediate vicinity. And both siblings knew that her clothes only stayed on because he'd bribed her with treats at the bakery.

But they made it through the trip to the bakery for Maisie's cake with only one attempt at Alecto sticking her fingers into a cake on display (and one more box of cookies than Amycus had agreed to.)

That said, the helping-to-decorate situation simply wasn't happening.

As a general rule, Alecto had very little interest in birthdays that weren't her own. The only aspect that interested her was the cake. Any requests to help with party setup, or to do anything other than sit in the middle of the floor and play with her rice, were met with a petulant, "No!"

"Alecto," Amycus coaxed. "Can you bring me the place cards?"

His sister looked at him like he had just asked her to go out and count every blade of grass on the grounds. "That's what the house-elves are for," she reminded him.

"Yes, that's true," he said. "But I requested you, dear sister, because I felt the cards needed a special touch. Perhaps some little drawings?"

That was all it took. While Amycus wrapped the gifts and prepared the room for a party, Alecto made her own contribution by decorating the place cards, even adorning a few with shiny rice.

-x-

Amycus had told Maisie to meet him in the parlor at around four, saying something about wanting to spend some time with his darling wife on her birthday. That was true. He just hadn't mentioned anything about Bella, Delphi, Fenrir, Yaxley, Dragon, Credence, Nagini, Les, and/or Modesty.

The party would begin in thirty-three minutes. Delphini and Yaxley were debating whether it was possible to smoke fried chicken. Les and Dragon were occupied as Credence and Modesty told them some story about a party for Ivan the leaf machine that had ended in three hours of cleaning up. Fenrir and Nagini were biting shoes in the corner, while Bella and Alecto debated what hat Phil should wear to the party.

"Pick the purple one," Amycus said.

Alecto placed the purple sunhat on Phil's head, smiling at her handiwork. "I think he likes it," Bella observed.

"Has everyone decided where they're going to hide?" Les asked once the story wrapped up.

"Hide?" Credence wondered aloud. He didn't know what they were hiding from or why they were doing it at a party.

"It's a surprise party, Credence," Les explained. "It's where we don't tell Aunt Maisie we're throwing her a party, because we want to surprise her."

"Why do we have to hide?" Modesty asked.

"Because if she walks in and sees all of us immediately, it'll be pretty obvious what we're doing."

"Oh. Okay."

She was already under the couch by the time Les finished her sentence.

Amycus needed most of the remaining time to hide the others. He tried to deposit Yaxley behind the couch, but behind the couch was not an appropriate place to eat fried chicken. Bellatrix complained that Phil wouldn't fit behind a statue of Wendelin the Weird. Amycus ended up having to throw a sheet over the table when it became clear that under the table was the only suitable hiding place for an Alecto. At least it wasn't hard to convince Fenrir to join her.

That is, until two of the table legs gave way. There was no need to ask. The sawdust surrounding Alecto and Fenrir said it all.

Suddenly the caterpillar tongue man found himself hoping Maisie would be a few minutes late.

-x-

By the time Dragon stuffed Delphini under the love seat, Maisie's footsteps were already audible. Amycus put his tongue over Yaxley's mouth so the crunch of his fried chicken wouldn't be heard.

"Amycus?" Maisie. Or, more accurately, her voice. She was somewhere nearby, but had yet to enter the room.

No one answered.

"Amycus?" The footsteps grew louder until their owner stepped into the room.

That was when everyone emerged to shout "Surpri..."

That was also when something else happened.

With everything else that ensued, no one noticed that Phantom, Amycus's pygmy puff, had wandered into the room and was crawling along the side of the couch. Nagini didn't recognize this puff and thought it was a snack. Serpentine instincts kicking in, she lunged for the puff.

Credence tried to stop her, but there was no need. Just before her fangs caught Phantom, Nagini watched, confused, as the puff disappeared from her view.

"That thing brings out your sunhat, Phil," Bella said, glancing over at her plant.

Phil, Bella's magical houseplant-venus flytrap hybrid, picked Phantom up and began to nibble him the way Alecto did her cookies. Before anyone could react, the plant's mouth closed as he swallowed, burping in contentment.

Maisie gave her husband a look. "Amycus, did you intend to show me the puff-eating plant or did something just go horribly wrong?"

Amycus massaged his temples with his tongue. After a few moments, the Death Eater turned to Credence and Modesty.

"Please tell me you know a thing or two about hungry foliage," he breathed.

-x-

It turned out that the Barebones could tell a few stories about how their mother's leaves would get sick (meaning moldy) and would be fed some warm soup. They also knew how to try to get a leaf machine to regurgitate something it had eaten. Unfortunately, though, they didn't have any advice on this matter.

So Amycus was forced to stick his fingers down the plant's throat.

The good news was that Phil gagged, throwing a very relieved puff back up. The bad news was that Phantom went flying, hitting Maisie squarely in the jaw before bouncing away onto the couch.

"I have to say," Maisie commented, wiping the plant drool from her face. "I haven't seen a party this eventful since Amycus wore his lozenge dress to the Christmas party."

-x-

Most of the excitement died down after that. Les had given Nagini some unclaimed puffs to eat, and she stuck one on her cake when it came time for that. Delphini was helping Alecto build Nurmengard Castle out of blocks. With everyone occupied, Amycus stole a moment with his precious Maisie.

"I'm sorry about the puff incident, dear," he told her, licking the tiny bruise the flying Phantom had left behind.

"You don't have to be sorry, Amycus," his wife told him. "After all, if Phantom hadn't hit me, he might have gone sailing down the hall."

"Still, I do believe we ought to be able to get through a party without a flying pygmy puff incident."

Maybe that was true of anything this particular group tried to do. Even in their downtime, a dull moment hadn't been seen since before the First Wizarding War.

But Maisie had gotten to spend her birthday with the ones she loved most, and that was what really mattered.

_-end-_


End file.
